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Wow Blackbeard, I changed my photo I never had a f2.8.
I do want to get another faster tele than the 4.5. I see the 2.8s around and because they are mostly used by pros they have that pro/beat up look like you see. Was it heavy after awhile? What did yours cost? You must have great memories as wanting it again!
I was a bit confused as you were obviously were talking about the f/4.5 versions but put the f/2.8 photo there! It was beat up, with scratches on the front that scare people away but make no difference to the photos, but it still worked great. I paid about $650 for it about three years ago and sold it for about the same last year. It came with an excellent perfectly-fitting soft LowePro case for it, too. It was heavy, and bulky - I really only brought it when I really knew I'd want it. I had the f/4 AF lens first, which wasn't nearly as good but was a lot easier to carry around. I think I'd get the 300mm f/4 AF-S if I got any one now - a better hit percentage than the manual focus one, and it's a lot easier to carry around. Newer cameras help make up for the lost stop too.
Here it is, with my F3, MD-4, and rare MK-1 vertical release. All that I have have left from that photo is the ball head (which admittedly isn't suitable for the 300). Well, I think I still have the motor drive but it's falling apart (they tend to do so after all these years - I've had two fail on me).
And here's a few taken with it:
Nocturnal310, the reason I say to get a hood rather than a filter unless you're really worried about resale value or heavy salt spray (or other corrosives, or heavy dust [i.e. you live in the desert and it's always coating everything, or are photographing rally races up close]) is several-fold:
1. Filters only worsen flare, and cheap ones can be quite bad. Better multicoated filters can have minimal impact. I would recommend you get a used Nikon L1Bc filter from KEH if you absolutely want a filter. A 52mm one should be $10 or less.
2. Hoods protect from flare rather than make it worse. They also provide far
better protection from drops and hitting things, where there is much more plastic or metal in a hood to absorb the energy of the impact. Filters often provide little or no protection for impacts - I've learned this through experience. Hoods keep fingers and everything else away from the surface of the lens as well.
3. A good filter, unless you buy used, is going to cost a very significant proportion of the price of that lens. Actually, if you look at the cost of kitting out a whole lens arsenal with new filters, it actually turns out that for anything except the most expensive lenses (or the most butterfingery of people) it actually isn't cost effective.
4. Scratches and fingerprints on lenses are extremely overrated. My 300mm lens that produced the images above had a 1" scratch on it, and several others. Granted, that's out of a 6" diameter. Read this and this:
http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2008/10/front-element-scratches
http://kurtmunger.com/dirty_lens_articleid35.html
I once shattered (well, badly cracked) a filter on a wide angle lens, and didn't even notice until a few days later when I saw some funny flare when I was shooting into stage lights at a concert.
So unless you plan on selling your lens, don't worry about it. Scratches hurt the resale value of lenses, not their images.
Oh, and get a LensPen for cleaning your lenses, when you do do that. It's much better than any cloth. For tough-to-remove things, Zeiss pre-moistened lens wipes are the best thing. Microfiber cloths and "lens cleaning tissue" will scratch your lens coatings eventually (and the glass too if you have sand stuck in them), but the pre-moistened wipes are very soft and come with isopropyl alcohol already in them to clean off any gunk.
But I find all of that more important for looks than images.